Overall 9 Graphics 7 Sound 6 Addictive 9 Depth 8 Difficulty 8
7.6
Top Gear 2 - my top gear is over 9,000! geeogree
Top Gear 2 is the sequel to the original Top Gear game and was released in 1993. Top Gear 2 is a much improved version of the game with many improvements to the game that the previous game lacked. It is not an amazing game by any stretch of the imagination but what it does right is great.
Graphics 7/10 – the graphics for this game are pretty good. I like the overall look of the game. The environments do not vary greatly but still look good. The cars themselves are pretty simple in design and are differentiated by color only. The various tracks do have a theme based on the part of the world they represent which is good. There is no generic design that gets used over and over for the backgrounds.
Another nice feature for the graphics is the weather effect. I’m including night time in this because there is no other easy way to describe that one. You can race in the day or night and have sun, rain, or fog weather effects. Fog and night affect how far ahead on the track you can see and the sun or rain determines which set of tires you will use.
Sound 6/10 – I really enjoyed the music for this game. Most of the tracks are upbeat in style and fit the racing style of the game fairly well. There is nothing amazing or overly memorable about the music though so I do not feel it deserves an overly high rating. I personally liked the music but I can see how the music could be annoying to some people.
The real problem I have with this game are the sound effects. Most specifically the sound when you crash your car really hard and it spins around. Maybe it is because I heard it a lot while playing but it really got on my nerves. It did not sound like anything I have ever heard a car sound like before. Though, I guess I have not crashed my car and caused it to spin around while driving 100 miles per hour. I should do that before I judge the sound too harshly. [goes to test] I was wrong all this time! That is the EXACT sound my car made when I hit something going 100 miles per hour and then spinning around. [end sarcasm] I feel the sound could have been better overall. The music was good but the other sound effects felt poorly done.
Addictiveness 9/10 – I personally think this game is great to play. I find the gameplay to be really enjoyable. The racing itself is pretty good. You start in the reverse position of how you finished the last race. For example, if you got 1st place then you would start 20th. If you finished 10th you started 11th. I liked this because it helped you out if you had a bad previous race to have a better shot the next time around.
I also really liked upgrading my car. That was one of the more enjoyable aspects and at the time was new for me. All the other racings games I had played had very basic upgrades if they had any at all. In Top Gear 2 you could upgrade the following things: Engine (made the car accelerate faster and slightly increased top speed), nitro (short term bursts to speed), transmission (increased the top speed of the car and fuel economy), tires (both dry and wet tires were available to buy depending on the weather) and armor (kept your from losing control when you hit barriers or other vehicles). This list is in no way large or anything but I felt it made the game more interesting than a basic racing game. I have played this game many, many times and likely will again.
Story – there is not a story to this game. You race your car in various places around the world and try to win. There is nothing else to the game. No rating on this one.
Depth 8/10 – I was going to rate this lower but then I remembered that there are 16 countries to race in with 4 races per country. That is 64 races total for the game. That is a huge number of tracks to race on for a game in this era. Combine that with the various upgrades you can make to your vehicle and you have a pretty long lasting game. There could have been multiple types of cars added to the game and at that point I would have rated a 9 or 10 for the game but this was pretty good.
Difficulty 8/10 – on the harder difficulty levels available this game can be quite tough especially if you have a slow start to the game. Having a slow start to the game really hinders any chance at success. It is almost required to upgrade the engine as soon as you have enough cash or the remaining races because almost unwinnable. If you can get the engine upgrade done before the first country is through then the difficulty drops off a bit but only as long as you maintain a steady stream of upgrades. If you lag behind at any point in the game then it can become really tough.
The game is even designed in such a way that if you do not have the right transmission you will run out of fuel before finishing the race. Obviously that only happens on later tracks but ignoring the upgrades for too long or not winning enough races in order to get them makes the game impossible to win. I think that mechanic alone makes allows this game to have a high difficulty rating.
Overall 7.6/10 – I’m surprised my rating ended up being this high. Graphics and sound for this game are not as good as the SNES could produce by far yet in spite of that I think the game itself is quite fun. The number of levels and the consistently increasing difficulty keeps the game interesting. There is also a 2 player mode which can keep the game fresh. A password system exists so you are able to take a break from the game as well and come back and continue from where you were. With 64 tracks to beat I can’t imagine trying to finish them all in one sitting.
Overall, I recommend this game as one of the better racing games for the 16-bit era. I can think of 2 that think are better than this but they each have a different style to them that makes me like them for differing reasons.
Graphics 7 Sound 6 Addictive 9 Depth 8 Difficulty 8
Review Rating: 3/5
Submitted: 04-26-16
Review Replies: 0
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